What is it about?

As public enterprises, port authorities perceive their ideas as broadly supportive of regional economic development and are strongly associated with chambers of commerce, economic development agencies and growth oriented citizens groups. However, shifts in American foreign trade, the use of transformative new technologies, and environmental regulation have dramatically changed the seaport industry over the last half century. As public enterprises, many ports responded to the new competitive markets by developing efficient but capital intensive logistical and container-handling technologies. Environmental regulation also had a role in stimulating more efficient use of port lands. Although frequently viewed as a road block to all development plans, the intergovernmental review processes may have helped turn ports away from their traditional patterns of land expansion development and toward redevelopment of existing facilities. With the constraint of greatly reduced land expansion opportunities. enterprising ports figured out they could greatly increase cargo handling capacity without enacting the wrath of environmental quality interests. This paper examines this contention with both economic logic and inferential data. The article is the recipient of the journal's 1986 Jeffrey Pressman Award for Best Article of the year.

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Why is it important?

Economic globalization, as it has unfolded over the last half century, could not have happened without the container revolution and the redevelopment of seaports worldwide. However, in response to globalization pressures, American seaports took different postures to change: some were driven by the new opportunities and collaboratively engaged with environmental agencies to achieve redevelopment goals, and some stonewalled. Curiously, those seaports with lesser market stature in the industry historically tended to be the ones providing the leadership in change and environmental adaptation. The resulting outcome involved an industry reordering made up of new front runners and the decline of former leaders.

Perspectives

When transformative opportunities emerge in an industry (at least regarding public enterprise), it may be the historical laggards who are most motivated to take up the leadership initiative, replacing those historical leaders having an outmoded paradigm.

DR HERMAN L BOSCHKEN
San Jose State University

Read the Original

This page is a summary of: PUBLIC ENTERPRISE, ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT, AND THE IMPACT OF ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION: THE EXPERIENCE OF AMERICAN SEAPORTS ON THE PACIFIC RIM, Review of Policy Research, November 1985, Wiley,
DOI: 10.1111/j.1541-1338.1985.tb00356.x.
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